Farmers facing a race against time and the elements to get winter crops back on track

THE RECORD levels of rainfall in many parts of the country have left a huge backlog of work for tillage farmers. There’s so much to do, it is difficult to know where to begin.

Farmers need to balance the need to complete the most urgent work with the soil conditions — for example many fields of winter cereals need fertiliser as soon as possible but ground conditions will not support heavy machinery.

The last thing anyone wants is to get a machine stuck in field for a day.

Plan your work schedule before you begin, inspect all winter crops and tramlines to see where you can and can’t travel. This may mean spreading much-needed fertiliser on parts of fields and coming back to the rest when ground conditions allow.

Winter barley and oilseed rape should get first priority where no fertiliser has been applied already.

Research work form Oak

Park shows that where the first application of nitrogen applied to winter barley is delayed till late March or early April then tillers may be lost and yields will be reduced.

Winter oilseed rape also needs nitrogen as the crops are at stem extension phase. The amount needed will depend on the Green Area Index (GAI) of the crop, which can be measured using the app on a smart phone.

Winter wheat and oats are not as critical in terms of the date of application of fertiliser and so can afford to be left a little later, although early sown crops will need the first applications by mid- to late March.

Trace element deficiencies, especially manganese, were evident in many crops earlier in the season; these have not gone away but are probably being masked by other deficiencies such as nitrogen.

Again winter barley will need to be addressed first but only after the first application of fertiliser has been applied. Watch out for foliar diseases in barley as cassia can be prone to rhynchosporium and mildew which again can affect tiller numbers — these can be tank-mixed with trace elements.

Many winter crops have yet to receive herbicides; for winter barley and oats the only options now are the spring herbicides, which need good growing conditions to work best so wait until there is a period of growth before applying.

All winter crops are under stress at the moment, so avoid applying plant growth regulators until (PGR) growth begins. Watch out for big swings in temperature between day and night which will reduce the effectiveness of the PGR and may also stress the crop.

For spring crops, time is getting tight for beans, spring wheat and spring oats — ideally these would need to be sown by the end of March. Where these are sown in April you can expect to have a late harvest and probably lower yields.

Spring barley, peas, beet, potatoes and spring oilseed rape can all be sown in April and still deliver respectable yields.

In the case of the cereals and beans pay attention to the thousand grain weight (TGW) when deciding the desired seed rates. Again in 2020 there is a significant difference between the highest and lowest TGW — this will have a direct impact on the amount of seeds planted to hit the target number of plants establishment.

Table 1 shows the difference in seed rates in spring barley between two different thousand grain weights, to establish the desired 300 plants per metre square.

Time is going to be scarce this year to get all the spring work completed.

At a recent discussion group that I attended, one piece of sage advice was given by a farmer who urged the other members of the group to make sure that seed, fertiliser and other inputs are in the yard before they are needed — don’t go looking for them the day you need them. This will save a lot of time.

Finally, farm safety has to be top of the agenda when working this spring.

Make sure to plan your days, take regular breaks, eat well, let people know where you are, get in extra help where available and get plenty of rest.

We all have a responsibility to make sure that all our workers, our families and ourselves work safely this spring.

‘Farmers were sagely advised to make sure that seed, fertiliser and other inputs are in the yard before they are needed’

Shay Phelan is a Teagasc crops specialist based in Co Carlow